SPRING 2008
In Depth
Perspectives in Social Work
Dear Alumni, Friends and Colleagues,
e are busily planning our 90th summer session and we expect the
summer will be a wonderful experience of continuing education,
renewal of friendships and celebration of the School for all.
This summer we celebrate our 90th Anniversary with a focus on Tradition
and Transformation: Celebrating 90 Years of Excellence in Clinical Social Work. The
celebration occurs July 17-20, 2008 and coincides with our Annual Conference
for field supervisors. In this newsletter you can read a wonderful history of the
School’s 90 years, written by former Dean Ann Hartman, M.S.S. ’54, D.S.W. By
now you should also have received the registration brochure for the celebration
and we hope you and your classmates are making plans to attend.
I am delighted to report that we will be hosting a three day conference
on Combat Stress: Understanding the Challenges, Preparing for the Return, on
June 26-28, 2008. The conference is aimed at clinicians who are committed to
responding to the mental health needs of returning veterans and their families.
Seminal leaders in this field will be speaking and we expect the conference to
be well-attended and received. See page 5 for more information about the
conference.
The School has just completed a faculty search and I am extremely happy
to announce that we are adding two new resident junior faculty to the practice
sequence. They are Annemarie Gockel, Ph.D. and Hye-Kyung Stella Kang,
Ph.D. They will both teach the foundation practice course and will serve as
faculty field advisors. See page 11 for further information about them.
We are also in the midst of planning an exciting summer lecture series.
I have invited Dr. Celia Chan, Si Yuan Professor in Health and Social Work;
Director, Centre on Behavioral Health; and Professor, Department of Social
Work and Social Administration, the University of Hong Kong to be our
Lydia Rapoport Professor. She will be lecturing on an integrative clinical social
work approach that is built on the strengths of counseling in the West and
Eastern philosophies of harmony from Chinese Medicine. She will also be
visiting classes during the week of July 28. For a full schedule of our summer
lectures see page 2.
I look forward to greeting many of you at our 90th Anniversary Celebration
in July.
W
Dean Carolyn Jacobs
Inside
2 Summer Lectures
The outstanding series is detailed
3 Mental Health Issues
in Returning Soldiers
6 Eve Geissinger Fund
Endowment fund honors former
student
12 History of the
School
A former dean looks back
Best regards,
Also inside: Class Notes,
Faculty Notes, and more.
Carolyn Jacobs, M.S.W., Ph.D.
Dean and Elizabeth Marting Treuhaft Professor
S UMMER L ECTURE S ERIES 2008
The following lectures are planned as part of the School’s 2008 Summer
Lecture series. For more information about individual events, visit the web site
at http://www.smith.edu/ssw/admin/academics_summerlectures.php
Trends in Supervision Theory: A Shift
to Relational Theory & Trauma Theory
Dennis Miehls, L.I.C.S.W., Ph.D.,
Associate Professor, Smith College
School for Social Work
Monday, June 2, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
What’s Hot in Child Development
Kyle Pruett, M.D., Professor
of Child Psychiatry at Yale Child
Study Center
Monday, June 9, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
In Depth
SPRING 2008
MANAGING EDITOR
Diane L. Tsoulas
Associate Dean for Administration
EDITOR
Valle Dwight
DESIGN
Elizabeth Hait
Letters to the Editor may be sent to:
In Depth Managing Editor,
Smith College School for Social Work,
Lilly Hall, Northampton MA 01063,
or by email to
indepth@email.smith.edu.
2
Beyond Tolerance: The Impact of
Family Reactions on Risk and WellBeing for LGBT Youth
Caitlin Ryan, ACSW, Ph.D.,
Director, Adolescent Health
Initiatives, César E. Chávez Institute,
San Francisco State University –
Brown Clinical Research Institute
Lecturer
Monday, June 23, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
Exploring Concepts of Individualism
and Collectivism in Northern
Uganda: Implications for Western
Practice
Joanne Corbin, M.S.S., Ph.D.,
Associate Professor, Chair of Research
Sequence, Smith College School for
Social Work
Monday, June 30, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
Making of a Racialized (non)Citizen:
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Policies from a Historical Perspective
Hye-Kyung Kang, M.A., M.S.W.,
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Smith
College School for Social Work
Monday, July 14, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
From Xenophobia through Prejudice
to Ethnic Violence
Salman Akhtar, M.D., Professor
of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical
College; Supervising and Training
Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center
of Philadelphia
Annual Conference and 90th
Anniversary Celebration Keynote
Lecturer
Friday, July 18, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
The SMART Clinical Social Work
Professor Cecilia Chan, Si Yuan
Professor in Health and Social Work;
Director, Centre on Behavioral
Health; and Professor, Department of
Social Work and Social Administration,
The University of Hong Kong
Lydia Rapoport Lecturer
Monday, July 28, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
Elders and Assistive Technology:
Preliminary Findings from Focus
Groups of Elders, Caregivers and
Professionals
Susan Donner, M.S.W., Ph.D.,
Professor and Associate Dean,
Smith College School
for Social Work
David Burton, M.S.W., Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor, Smith College
School for Social Work
Monday, August 4, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Leo Weinstein Auditorium
Wright Hall
Mental health issues in soldiers
returning from combat
BY VALLE DWIGHT
oldiers returning home from
duty in Iraq and Afghanistan
face a host of mental health
issues, some as timeless as the
shellshock experienced by soldiers
coming home in 1918; others
uniquely a product of modern
warfare.
And mental health professionals
are using time-honored methods of
treatment along with some new
strategies and techniques to deal with
these issues, including post-traumatic
stress disorder, depression, substance
abuse and family discord.
While many of these issues are
similar to those facing soldiers after
the first World War, there are some
crucial differences and many new
approaches being used to treat
veterans, according to Smith College
School for Social Work Professor
Kathryn Basham. Basham served on
a congressionally mandated
committee sponsored by the Institute
of Medicine of the National
Academies of Science exploring the
physiologic, psychologic and
psychosocial effects of deploymentrelated stress during the Gulf War
and more recent combat zones in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the factors that are
making this war particularly difficult
on returning soldiers include longer
and consecutive deployments and
the depth of pre-deployment training experienced by soldiers as they
prepare for an intense level of
combat, Basham said. And on top of
other mental health concerns, many
veterans returning from Iraq are also
dealing with traumatic brain injury
S
as a result of being injured by
improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
As a result, family members have
needed to provide temporary and, in
some cases, longer-term caregiving
for their wounded soldier. As many
more women and troops drawn from
the National Guard and Reservists
serve in these combat zones, unique
issues facing these families deserve
attention.
Unfortunately, one thing that
hasn’t changed from one war to the
next is the stigma attached to seeking
help for emotional disorders, said
Basham.
“The mental health care stigma
remains pervasive and is a significant
barrier to care,” agreed Captain Amy
Barkin, M.S.W., ’71, a
Commissioned Officer in the United
States Public Health Service. She is
on staff at the National Naval
Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.
Captain Amy Barkin, M.S.W.
Flexibility is key
Lessons learned from past wars have
helped inform the current standard
of care for returning soldiers, Basham
said. “We learned that the
homecoming is critical,” she said.
During the Vietnam War, soldiers
coming home were not met with
open arms, nor were they offered
help to ease the stress of return to
civilian life.
Soldiers returning today have a
much more welcoming return,
including mental health screening
and access to mental health workers.
But that’s just a start, Basham said.
Soldiers need intervention in their
first several months home or they
risk a possiblilty that problems might
become more entrenched.
Ron Biela, M.S.W. ’97 has worked
in the Denver VA outpatient mental
health clinic for ten years, where he
runs individual and group
psychotherapy sessions as well as
crisis intervention.
“The vets I see are in their teens
and in their 80’s; there is a whole
range,” he said.
These days Biela is seeing a sharp
increase in visits from veterans of Iraq
and Afghanistan. He estimates that
the center sees 12 new intakes each
week. And in all the cases, he said,
no two are alike. “There are very
diverse issues,” he said. “It’s much
different from what the public would
perceive.”
“I have to adapt to what each
person needs,” Biela said. “You can’t
expect it to be a traditional talk
therapy session. You have to stay on
your toes and figure out what will
help each individual.”
Biela has one client who has a clear
direction for his future – he’s in
school and is hoping to go to law
school. That ambition and futurefocus helps that veteran to navigate
the complicated process of returning
to civilian life. But even that vet has
Continued on next page
3
Soldiers, from previous page
Ron Biela, M.S.W.
needed help, Biela said. Every time
someone came to his door, the vet
would reach for his loaded gun. Biela
knew that just typical talk therapy
wouldn’t do the trick in this situation,
so he and the vet developed a written
cost/benefit analysis of carrying a
loaded weapon. “That’s all he
needed,” Biela said.
Another soldier came to him while
home recovering from wounds, but
he was being redeployed. The soldier
needed a way to ease the hypervigilance at home that he needs to
survive in Iraq.
“The first time he went to a
grocery store he was freaked out,”
Biela said. The different sense of
reality was jarring to him, and can
often cause panic. So Biela worked
with him to develop some relaxation
techniques to help him deal with
situations like that.
Longer deployments
Complicating the treatment for
soldiers is the fact that they are facing
longer deployments and are often
called back to combat after returning
home. In fact, the major predictor of
a soldier suffering from mental health
issues is the degree of combat
exposure, Basham said.
The intensity of combat is also
particularly unrelenting, Basham
noted, and military personnel are
consistently on high alert and are
rarely ever to let down their guard.
“The horrific nature of bom-
4
bardment and endangerment”
increases a soldier’s risk for emotional
fallout, Basham said. “There is no
relief from that stress. Even the
sleeping and dining quarters are
vulnerable. These soldiers are at risk
24/7.”
Biela agreed that longer
deployments and the prospect of
being redeployed make treatment
more difficult. Until a soldier feels
confident about what the future
holds, he is not ready to dive into
therapy or put his life in order.
“I saw a guy who found a job he
really liked. He has a burning desire
for a life with his partner,” said Biela.
“But then he got the news that he’s
being redeployed.”
When a vet knows he’s done with
combat, he or she can make the war
a past chapter in their life, Biela said.
“But if they are going to get called up
again, we can’t work on the PTSD.
They have to maintain that denial in
order to go back into it.”
Family matters
One big change in the treatment of
returning soldiers stems from the
understanding that entire families are
affected and need to be part of the
healing.
“We’re beginning to understand
that combat can shatter family
attachments,” Basham said. “And if
the disengagement continues for
too long it can lead to isolation.
Part of the work is educating the
family about what’s going on with
the returned soldier, and the
secondary and interactive effects
they may see within the entire
family.”
Part of the work with the family is
also rebuilding connections, learning
problem solving, and helping renegotiate the family power dynamic.
Women are seeing combat in this
war and aside from the battle-related
stress, they are also wrestling with
sexual harassment and assault. As
parents, women have given up their
co-parenting role and many are
having trouble re-establishing
relations with their children.
Amy Barkin agrees that one of the
biggest differences in treatment is the
involvement of the family in treatment
from early on, for both physical and
mental health issues. “The family is
at the bedside of the solider within
days,” Barkin said. “The expectation
is that the family will provide more
care and support to the solider.”
Unfortunately, treatment and
services for family members are not
always available once the soldier
leaves the military hospital, Barkin
has found. “There are significant
gaps in the continuum of care for
psychological health.”
Getting into the field
The vast majority of clinical mental
health services provided to soldiers
and their families comes from social
workers, Basham said, so the demand
for more and better trained
professionals is very high. Smith
currently has 14 students now placed
in VA hospitals and at Walter Reed,
and the school is offering workshops
on practice approaches working with
soldiers and their families. The
School has also planned a major
conference on combat stress for June,
2008. (See conference announcement
on page 5.)
Aside from being flexible and wellversed in a range of practice
approaches that are both culturally
responsive and theoretically
grounded, clinical social workers
working with veterans also need to
understand the culture and the
language of the military, said
Basham. Combat trauma is distinctive, and social workers working
with soldiers need to understand the
nature of violence and the ethical
dilemmas that the soldiers have
experienced. “Many of our students
are in territory that is very different
for them,” she said. “It’s like any
cross-cultural encounter. You listen,
empathize and suspend judgment.”
Working with returning soldiers
is extremely demanding and not for
everyone, remarked Barkin. “Life
experience is helpful for social
workers in the field,” she said, “and
self-awareness is key.”
“Students going into this need to
have their eyes open,” said Barkin.
“This can be overwhelming. But it
can be a very rewarding assignment.”
Combat Stress: Understanding the
Challenges, Preparing for the Return
June 26, 27, & 28, 2008 – 18 Continuing Education Credits
A three day program for clinicians both within and outside of the military who are committed
to responding to the mental health needs of returning veterans and their families.
KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS:
The Deployment Cycle:
Expectations and Implications
Army Col. Carl Castro, Military
Operation Medicine Research
Program, U.S. Army Medical
Research and Material Command,
Fort Detrick; Mark Chapin, Ph.D.,
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
The Trials of Homecoming:
Odysseus returns from
Iraq/Afghanistan
Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.,
Psychiatrist, Department of
Veteran Affairs Outpatient Clinic;
2008-2012 MacArthur Fellow
Secondary Trauma and
Caregivers
Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., Director,
Florida State University
Traumatology Institute and
Psychosocial Stress Research
and Development Program;
Brian E. Bride, Ph.D., University
of Georgia School of Social
Work
Resiliency and Hope
Rev. Dr. Chaplain John P. Oliver,
D.Min., B.C.C., Chief, Chaplain
Service, Durham Veterans
Administration Medical Center
WORKSHOPS INCLUDE:
Traumatic Brain Injury: Understanding the Invisible Wound
Louis French, Ph.D.,
Neuropsychologist, Walter Reed
Army Medical Center (tentative)
Refuge or a New Combat Zone for
Warfighters, their Partners and
Families
Kathryn Basham, Ph.D., Smith College
School for Social Work; Christopher
Storey, M.S.W., Staff; Social Work,
Veteran’s Administration Puget Sound
Health Center; Taylene Watson,
M.S.W., Director of Social Work
Services, Veteran’s Administration
Puget Sound Health Center
The Response of Schools of Social
Work to the Return of Uniformed
Service Members and their Families
Frank R. Baskind, M.S.W., Ph.D.,
Dean, Virginia Commmonwealth
University School of Social Work;
Carolyn Jacobs, M.S.W., Ph.D., Dean,
Smith College School for Social
Work; Norma G. Jones, Ph.D.,
L.C.S.W., BCD (CDR USN Ret),
Associate Professor, Acting Ph.D.
Program Director, The Ethelyn R.
Strong School of Social Work,
Norfolk Virginia; Peter B. Vaughan
M.S.W., Ph.D., Dean, Fordham
University School of Social Service
Challenges of Depression,
Substance Abuse and Suicide for
Soldiers, Veterans and
their Families
Tousha West, M.S.W., Suicide
Prevention Coordinator, Atlanta
Veterans Administration Medical
Center and Alan Bernhardt, Ph.D.,
Director of the Substance Abuse
Program, Northampton Veterans
Administration Medical Center
Beyond Combat: Complexity
of Mental Health Responses
Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D., author;
private practice; Barbara Leiner,
L.C.S.W.-C., Walter Reed Army
Medical Center; Nancy Meyer, M.S.W.,
L.I.C.S.W., Clinical Social Worker,
Outpatient Behavioral Health, Walter
Reed Army Medical Center
Reaching out to Reservists
Jaine Darwin, Ph.D., Co-Founder of
Strategic Outreach to Families of All
Reservists (SOFAR)
This conference was made possible
thanks to a gift from The Brown
Foundation.
Co-Sponsored by Give-an-Hour
For details and registration information go to
www.smith.edu/ssw/admin/
academics_combat_conference_2008.php
5
Eve Geissinger Fund honors woman
who lived her life to the fullest
BY BOB FLAHERTY
t was after midnight when the phone rang. Warren and
Barbara Geissinger had just gotten into bed. They had
enjoyed a wonderful visit with their daughter Eve, 38,
who was about to begin her second year at the Smith College
School for Social Work and had dropped off her cat to live
with them for a while at their Littleton, New Hampshire
home. Warren picked up the receiver. On the line was an offduty cop from Manchester. Their daughter, as she was about
to toss a quarter into the hopper at the Bedford toll booth,
was hit from behind by a drunk driver going 90 miles an
hour.
“I went into a freeze,” said Barbara Geissinger, both she
and her husband now 85. “The doctor said all the trauma
was to her head. As we drove to the hospital, Warren kept
saying, ‘We’ll take care of her in a wheelchair.’ What if she’s
dead, I kept thinking, what if she’s dead?”
Eve lost consciousness at impact and never regained it. She
died a few hours later. The date was June 8, 1992.
Jeff Smarse knows that date like he knows his own
birthday. He has spoken of it a thousand times since. He
was the driver of the car that smashed into Eve Geissinger.
He was 24 at the time, drunk out of his mind, as usual.
He has no memory of it, in fact. All he remembers is waking
up in the hospital, his leg shackled to the bed.
“I was blacked out,” he said. “I was out of control, a oneman path of destruction.”
Smarse pled guilty to negligent homicide. Barbara
Geissinger recalls the exact words the judge said at
sentencing: “You’ve ruined one person’s life and probably
ruined your own.” He got six years in prison. His mother
collapsed as he was led away.
Barbara Geissinger stayed in that frozen emotional state for
weeks. “But when you postpone grieving it catches up to
you,” she said, and health problems soon followed.
“Eve was honest, affectionate, very outgoing, not always
quiet, and always accepting of people,” said Barbara of her
daughter, and told of the girl who began hiking New
Hampshire’s trails at age three.
She was a bird watcher, or, more importantly, a bird
listener. Her favorite flowers were ephemerals, noted not only
for their beauty, but for their very short bloom. She played
the harp and sang with her church choir. Her motto was
“Dum Vivimus Vivamus,” Latin for “While we live, live.”
She went to the Pomfret School in Connecticut, where
her father taught. She graduated from Brown University
magna cum laude, with the status and prestige to go
anywhere she chose. But she wanted to experience life from
I
6
all perspectives and took a night shift job as an inspector at
a tool and die plant. And she worked on assembly lines, the
only woman there.
“She was always trying to do something new without
pushing anyone aside,” said Barbara. “She once had a job
climbing telephone poles for AT&T. Everyone loved her,
even men she had to compete with. They were all older than
her and treated her like a daughter.”
Though she eventually landed a high-paying position at
Digital, it was her sense of justice and compassion that led
her to volunteer at rape crisis centers and at shelters for the
homeless and mentally ill. And that directly influenced her
decision to make a career change in her late thirties and go
back to school to become a social worker.
On her last day on earth, she climbed a new trail on
Mount Mooselauke and saw a brown-capped chickadee for
the first time.
Her body was cremated, the ashes scattered over her
favorite hiking place.
The Eve Geissinger Memorial Endowment was established
by her colleagues at Digital and some of her classmates at
the School for Social Work. It awards a $1,000 stipend to
second year students in financial need who are placed in an
agency whose mission is to overcome violence against
women. It hit the $33,000 level in 2007 and gains $3,500
of income every year. Last year, three students received
stipends from the endowment.
But that’s not the end of the story. Because Eve Geissinger
lives on in the heart of another. Jeff Smarse.
“I made a promise to myself and to Eve,” he said, and,
with help from his family and God, got into every substance
abuse program prison had to offer. He has not taken a drink
since August of 1992, two months after the crash.
Her served four and a half years of his sentence, released
on parole largely because of a letter the Geissingers wrote on
his behalf. They believed that Smarse, once out, would make
a difference and help people.
“They are remarkable people,” said Smarse. “They
transformed my life.”
Jeff Smarse contacted the Geissingers when he got out of
jail. He met them in Concord, where they now live.
“It was a good visit, but awful,” said Barbara. “He has a
great family. Most people from our side hated him, couldn’t
understand why we’d want to talk to him. But he didn’t do it
deliberately.”
Smarse himself begs to differ. “It was not an accident. I
deliberately drove drunk,” he said.
But something Barbara Geissinger told him that day in
Concord will stay with him the rest of his life. “We can love
you or hate you, but nothing comes from hate.”
“It was at that point that I could forgive myself,” said Smarse.
In conjunction with the New Hampshire Highway Safety
Agency, Smarse, in a talk called “Fatal Reality,” began speaking to
youth groups about the dangers and irresponsibility of drinking
and driving. In it, Smarse re-enacts his moment of sentencing and
the terrifying chill of lockup. He has spoken to some 70,000
students, and has never taken a dime, directing all donations to
the endowment.
“I am on a crusade. This is a lifetime process for me. It’s doing
the right thing. I never did the right thing until the crash.”
Smarse has become close to Eve’s parents. They exchange
Christmas cards. He drove to their house to share news of his
engagement. He invited them to his wedding. He has worked in
the field of social work for seven years.
Somewhere on a small mountain in Littleton there stands a
slate memorial to Eve Geissinger, carved by her art teacher back
at the Pomfret School. Jeff Smarse has visited that stone. Just him
and his thoughts and the nature Eve loved all around him. He’ll
never drink again.
“Ever,” he said. “To go back and slip up would be a slap in the
face to Eve and her family. Eve did not die in vain.”
To make donations to the fund please go to http://www.smith.edu/ssw/alumni
/giving.php and designate your gift to the Eve Geissinger Memorial Fund or
contact the Office of Advancement and Alumni Affairs at 413-585-7964.
Changing Lives
Fieldwork associate director relishes the impact of his work
Anthony Hill has been working to
make a difference for his entire
professional career, first as a clinician,
guidance counselor and elementary
school principal, and now as Associate
Director of Fieldwork at the School; a
job he’s held for nearly two years.
Hill, who holds an M.S.W. from the
University of Pennsylvania and a
certificate in educational administration
from Springfield College, is not only
working at the School; he’s also
obtaining his E.D.D. at the University
of Massachusetts.
He says his career path has been a bit
unconventional. He came to Smith from
the Liberty Elementary School in
Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had
been principal for three years. “That was
a real opportunity to not only do social
work but really focus on prevention,” he
said. “As principal I could help solve
problems and focus on education, and
even prevent problems from happening.
The best part was helping kids see that
they could transform their lives,” he said.
Before Liberty, he worked as an
outreach clinician at the Center for
Human Development in Springfield,
later as the head adjustment counselor at
the Margaret E. Ells Elementary School
in Springfield, and then as the assistant
principal at the Chestnut Accelerated
Middle School, all in Springfield.
Being out of the elementary school
setting and in a graduate school setting is
very different, he said—now he is
working on what’s essentially the other
end of the field, helping students to help
others.
“I love it here; the students are very
sharp and are doing really great work
in the field. I’m glad to be a part of
it. And the faculty is so hardworking
and talented, and I love working with
them,” he said.
Hill is also pleased to be teaching
a course at the School this summer:
Child Development From Infancy to
Adolescence.
When he’s done at the University
of Massachusetts, which he expects
will be in the fall
of 2009, Hill
hopes to continue
teaching at the
university level.
“I’m very much
looking forward
to it,” he said.
7
A Call to Support your School at this Historic Moment
Dear alumni and friends,
As we celebrate this historic year in the history of Smith College School for Social Work – 90 years of existence! – I want
to highlight why I believe so strongly in the mission and values of this institution and why I ask you to join me in supporting
the School. Smith College School for Social Work has always had a deep commitment to serving the needs of the most
underserved and vulnerable members of our society. From its founding in 1918 – in response to the needs of shell-shocked
soldiers returning from World War I – up to today’s programming, which addresses the mental health needs of an increasingly
complicated and stress-filled world, the School has always been on the forefront of developing training to respond to society’s
evolving needs.
This year we return to our roots with a focus on addressing combat trauma – trauma
that is both similar to and different from that which underlay our founding. For an
overview of the work our alumni and faculty are doing to address the mental health needs of
today’s veterans and their families, see the article on page 3. And for information on the
conference the School is planning on Combat Stress see page 5.
I am proud of the School’s continued focus on excellent clinical training to prepare
students to meet the challenges posed by trauma survivors and their families, as well as the
other mental health needs of society. In order to continue our ability to attract the strongest
students, we need your support. The number one funding priority for the School is student
financial aid. While the college generously supports our physical plant, it does not
contribute to our operating or financial aid budgets. Our financial aid budget relies on the
School’s operating funds and on the generous gifts of alumni. That is why your financial
support is critical.
I hope you are planning to attend the 90th Anniversary Celebration this summer. And if
you haven’t yet made a donation to the annual fund, please do so before the end of the fiscal
year on June 30, 2008. To make an even more meaningful gift, consider donating in honor
or memory of a colleague, classmate or loved one. If you would like more information about
all of the opportunities to support the School financially, please go to http://www.smith.edu/
ssw/alumni/designations.php or call Roxanne Pin, Director of Advancement and Alumni
Affairs at 413-585-7964.
I look forward to greeting many of you at our 90th Anniversary Celebration on
July 17 – 20, 2008.
Thanks for your support and warmest regards,
Jeana Hayes-Carrier, M.S.W. ’84, Ph.D. ’02
Chair of the Annual Fund
✃
❏
Counting on
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SWID
2007 Honorary Alumni Awards
Beginning in 1997, the alumni of Smith College School
for Social Work have honored individuals associated with
the School who are not alumni by awarding the status of
Honorary Alumna/us. The purpose of this award is to
recognize those individuals who have rendered
distinguished service to the Alumni Association and/or the
School, or who have otherwise attained distinction
deserving of recognition by the Smith College School for
Social Work Alumni Association. The 2007 awardees are
James Sacksteder, M.D., Associate Medical Director and
Director of Patient Care, Austen Riggs Center and adjunct
professor at Smith SSW for 29 years, and Martha Watson,
M.S.W., Supervisor and Director of Training at the Kaiser
Permanente/Watts Counseling Service in Los Angeles and
clinical assistant professor and supervisor for Smith SSW
from 1994-2005.
James Sacksteder, M.D.
Reflections by Karen Bellows,
Ph.D. ’99; President, SCSSW
Alumni Association
Jim has given much to the
School in his years of teaching
here. His many professional
contributions to Smith are very
impressive, and include his
distinguished work of 31 years as a
member of the professional
community at the Austen Riggs
Center, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Jim currently serves as
the Associate Medical Director and Director of Patient Care
there. He has written over 20 articles and book chapters on
the treatment of anorexia, long-term psychoanalyticallyoriented psychotherapy of severely disturbed patients,
narcissism, object relations theory, and ego psychology. He is
co-editor of Attachment in the Therapeutic Process.
Yet, all of these accomplishments don’t capture what has
been so valuable that he’s offered to over 2,500 M.S.W. and
doctoral students at Smith as an adjunct professor these past
29 years. Most of us here have lasting memories of his
lectures. I’d like to share a few of mine:
I first met Jim through the Austen Riggs community, in
1981. He was a pretty big deal, even then. In social
conversation, he was charming, urbane, with a wickedly dry
wit, yet entirely contained. Not long after, I caught word
from friends who were then M.S.W. students at Smith that
in the Senior Skits, Jim was typically parodied with such
titles as Dr. Sex-Starver. I was clearly missing something!
One’s fantasies become piqued by such information.
What, exactly, was Jim teaching about psychodynamic
theories at Smith, and through what pedagogic methods? As
fortune would have it, I would find out for myself, years
later, as a doctoral student here. And it was worth the wait!
Our small doctoral seminar class that Jim taught was a
Masterpiece Theatre, posing the historical drama of the
unfolding of psychoanalysis. And Jim was our Alistair
Cooke, as he introduced us in that small salon of a
classroom—while plying us with the loveliest European
cheeses, crackers, and wine—to a theater of tension-filled
drama, replete with love, hate, longing, and betrayal, in the
story of the lives of the early actors on the psychoanalytic
stage. It all came to life through Jim’s compelling portrayals
and we felt that we were special guests, invited inside the
mind of Fairbairn, for instance, as Jim deftly described
some loss in Fairbairn’s life that could render him capable
of understanding the unbearable pain underlying schizoid
withdrawal. At the close of the story, one was always left
yearning for more. It was truly performance art, although
Jim rarely moved or gestured.
The magic and brilliance of Jim’s teaching was in the
parallel process of evoking in us the transformative powers
of love, frustration, and longing—those that become
evoked in any truly therapeutic relationship—through what
felt like an intimate invitation into the minds and hearts of
the creators of psychoanalytic thought. Thank you, Jim, for
preparing yourself so well for this journey and for taking us
there! You, Dr. Sex-Starver, will be sorely missed!
Continued on next page
9
Honorary Alumni, from previous page
Martha Watson, M.S.W.
Reflections provided by SCSSW
Alumni
“When I think about Martha
Watson, what comes to mind is
her passion for the Watts
Counseling and Learning Center.
She combined social work skill
and professionalism with the spirit
of grassroots service delivery. She
loved the community and
followed many of the clients
through the various changes in their lives over many years.
Martha created a certain atmosphere with the students who
were placed under her care. I remember the first time I came
to the agency and walked into an entire room of cubicles,
each one housed by a different intern. I couldn’t imagine
how Martha could attend to all of them. But the interns
were providing much of the direct service at the center, and
Martha trained, nurtured and cherished them. If a student
was disappointed because a multi-problem family failed to
return for a second appointment, Martha offered the
perspective that there was meaning and value in the first
appointment, and sometimes that’s all we’re able to do. She
helped our students weave their experiences into a theoretical
framework that made sense for this setting. She provided
herself as a role model of a compassionate and seasoned
social worker.” Lynn Rosenfield, M.S.W. ’76 (Faculty Field
Advisor 1998-2000)
“I recall Martha’s resolve to treat others as unique and
irreplaceable souls, all while teaching other students like
myself to value each individual, even if meeting a person for
a moment. Martha was my unwavering guide through the
white water of social work. She has left an engraving of
strength and hope, which I have proudly taken with me since
that first internship. I will keep it with me. It is irreplaceable.
She is irreplaceable.” Annika Kuecherer, M.S.W. ’03 (20012002 field placement)
“When I think of Martha Watson I remember grace.
Entering Watts Learning and Counseling Center as a
tentative beginning social worker, I found a holding
environment shepherded gently and firmly by Martha.
10
Quietly prodding, reflecting and illustrating, Martha opened
the door to the use of self. She utilized humor and a delicious
lunch at Roscoe’s to loosen apprehension and rigidity. Her
seemingly informal supervision style enabled this social
worker to feel deeply the power of the therapeutic process.
I remember starting to cry—a surprise to me—when
elaborating on a particular patient’s experience. Martha
quietly said “now you know how she feels.” I feel most
fortunate to have begun my training with such a wise, warm
and delightful supervisor.” Anne (Spaulding) Rose, M.S.W.
’98 (1996-1997 field placement)
“As a seasoned clinician Martha modeled patience,
sensitivity, respect, inquisitiveness, acceptance, and self
reflection. As a first-year student I recall sharing with her my
insecurities about my ability to help clients with complex
problems since I was “just an intern.” Martha gently
challenged this assumption and helped me understand how
the capacity to hear and understand a client could in itself be
very helpful to them. In supervision she demonstrated
compassion toward me and my clients. Modeling this
authentic communication had a very positive impact on my
way of applying theory to practice and on my identity
development as a social worker.” Barbara Malcolm
Krementz, M.S.W. ’01 (1999-2000 field placement)
“She taught me how to conceptualize clients from a
holistic perspective, how to be aware of transference and
countertransference, how to be empathic without becoming
overly involved, and how to terminate without feeling guilty.
I felt so lucky to have had Martha. She helped me build a
foundation that has greatly influenced how I developed as a
clinician. I take her lessons and use them daily.” Jenny
McKirdy, M.S.W. ’06 (2004-2005 field placement)
“When I reflect back and think of my time being
supervised by Martha, I remember a person who knew how
to meet me where I was. Martha knew how to say things to
get me to think critically, while at the same time providing
me the flexibility to learn and grow as a clinician. I wouldn’t
be who I am today as a therapist had it not been for the
guidance that she provided me. I believe I did some great
work during my time there and it was only made possible by
having Martha’s support and presence as a great person first
and a great clinician second.” Phillip Reynolds, M.S.W. ’05
(2004-2005 field placement)
Faculty Announcement
The School has just completed a faculty search and we
are extremely happy to announce that we are adding two
new resident junior faculty to the practice sequence. They
are Annemarie Gockel, Ph.D. and Hye-Kyung Stella
Kang, Ph.D. They will both teach the foundation
practice course and will serve as faculty field advisors.
Annemarie comes to us from a Post Doctoral
Fellowship at Kaiser Permanente, outpatient psychiatry
at Pleasant Hill California. She recently received her
Ph.D. in counseling psychology from
the University of British Columbia and did her
M.S.W. degree at the University of Toronto. In addition
to her solid experience in clinical practice with a variety
of populations, she has special training in dealing with
addictions and women’s services.
An area of particular interest and of future research
is the interconnection between mental health and
spirituality. We look forward to her energy, her
critical thinking skills, her practice expertise and her
commitment to research when she joins us in
January, 2009.
Hye-Kyung has been an assistant professor at Fordham
University Graduate School of Social Service. She received
both her Ph.D. and M.S.W. from the University of
Washington School of Social Work with a concentration
in Multi-Ethnic Practice. She also has an M.A. in
psychology from Antioch College. Hye-Kyung has taught
in practice, HBSE and policy. In addition to her training
and experience in multi-ethnic practice, she has expertise
in immigrant/refugee mental health and identity and in
community organizing and community practice. When
she joins us in July she will bring to us her commitment
and skill in teaching from a multi-cultural practice
perspective and cutting edge research agenda.
Please help us welcome them to our community.
Susan Donner, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Chair, Faculty Search
11
Smith College School for Social
Work History, 1918-2008
BY ANN HARTMAN, M.S.S. ’54, D.S.W.
e’ve come to understand
that history is not an
objective reporting of “the
truth.” As I study the various
accounts of the School, it becomes
clear that history is a product of the
interaction between the sources, the
events, and the historian. With a
complicated institution like the
Smith School for Social Work,
revisiting its history requires selection
and emphasis. And, as one
approaches the task, one is influenced
by one’s own experience and values.
What you see is determined by where
you stand. So my story will be
different from other histories as those
histories are different from each
other. I begin by describing the
context, sharing something of both
my particular experiences with the
school and a little about “where I
W
stand” which will help, perhaps, to
make clearer the view from here.
The school has been an important
part of my life for over 70 years.
When my mother was a SSW student
in the mid-30s, she sneaked me into
the quad and I slept on the floor in
her room. She was devoted to her
teacher, Bertha Reynolds, who became
the patron saint of our household,
along with Jane Addams and Eleanor
Roosevelt. After graduation, my
mother supervised Smith students for
years (as, later, did my sister) and I
remember well the anxiety and flurry
attending the thrice-yearly visits of
Annette Garrett, who was her field
advisor. Annette Garrett was also
my field advisor when I was a student
almost 20 years later. Garrett was
my casework teacher as well, and
she joined my pantheon of social
work “greats.”
I returned to the School several
times in the ensuing years, for various
anniversaries and celebrations. A high
point was attending the 50th
anniversary with my mother and
meeting Bertha Reynolds. In 1986, I
returned to the School as dean, and
after retirement eight years later, continued to teach, advise field students,
and consult on Human Subjects
Review applications. How can I possibly be “objective” about an institution that has been so central in my
life?
Where I stand, of course, shapes
what stands out for me in Smith’s
rich history. I have always been
deeply concerned about the social
and political world, and thus
particularly interested in exploring, as
over time the School enthusiastically
A mock clinic with Mary Jarett, Smith College School for Social Work, circa 1918. Courtesy of Smith College Archives.
12
embraced the growing focus on and
understanding of the inner world,
whether Smith kept within its vision
the enormous impact of social and
political forces, of the larger context
in which its graduates would
practice. Social work’s major task has
been to seek and find ways of
integrating the social and the
psychological, the inner and the
outer worlds. That is our special
focus, our special and demanding
contribution. So when I write about
the history of the School, this is how
my personal history is the lens that
shapes my narrative.
It has been said that an educational
institution should be a “marketplace
of ideas.” I would like to look at the
history of the school as such a
marketplace, where ideas—shaped by
breakthroughs in knowledge,
charismatic leaders, and the political
and social forces of the day—were
tested and taught, discarded or
embraced. This will not be an
institutional history and much will
be left out. I apologize in advance for
all the ideas and the people my
readers feel should have been
included. I am sure they should have
been.
The often-told story of the birth of
the school is familiar: E.E. Southard,
a major leader in the infant Mental
Hygiene Movement, and Mary
Jarrett originating “psychiatric social
work” at Boston Psychopathic,
developing a training program at the
hospital; Jarrett’s failed search for a
social work program that would
include a focus on the new ideas
developing in the burgeoning
movement (she was told that social
work students were not ready to take
on these new ideas); the meeting in
Grand Central Station between
Southard and President Nielson of
Smith College in April, 1918 to
consider the development of an
emergency training program in
First class of School for Social Work in front of Northrup and Gillett.
Courtesy of Smith College Archives.
psychiatric social work at the college;
the subsequent meeting a few days
later in Northampton of Jarrett,
Nielson, and Steward Chapin,
Sociology Professor on the Smith
Faculty (he would lead the school in
its first years); and, remarkably, the
arrival of 70 adventurous women to
begin a carefully fashioned and fully
staffed program just three months
later, on July 7, 1918. In the fall, 44
women reported for six months of
“practical training” in 13 agencies in
Boston, New York, Baltimore, and
Philadelphia. Many of these pioneers
went on to occupy leadership
positions in the young profession.
The school was born in response to
the need for trained social workers to
work with the soldiers retuning from
the battlefields of Europe and
suffering from what was then called
“shell shock.” We see here Smith’s
early association with trauma. But it
was also a child of the new ideas
about mental hygiene. What were
these ideas? Primarily, emerging views
expanded the understanding of
mental illnesses beyond the notion
that they were only disease processes
of the brain to include the impact of
social and environmental forces.
These were set down in Southard and
Jarrett’s voluminous text for social
workers, The Kingdom of Evils,
(1922). The “evils,” spelled out and
illustrated in 100 detailed case
studies, were diseased defects of mind
and body, educational deficiencies
and misinformation, vices and bad
habits, legal entanglements, and
poverty. Some of the cases make
wonderful reading, with titles such as
“Agnes Jackson, pathetic nuisance” or
“Nora Campbell, ladylike
adventuress.”
Clearly, although dynamic psychology was beginning to reach our
shores, Southard and Jarrett came
from another world. Southard warned
against getting caught up in these
new ideas and Jarrett shared with
Mary Richmond a marked distaste for
Sigmund Freud, whose name does
not even appear in the volume’s
comprehensive bibliography.
13
Members of the first class at the School standing on the steps of Northampton State Hospital.
Courtesy of the Smith College Archives.
The first year was so successful that
the decision was made to found a
permanent school and in 1919 the
summer session opened, offering
specialization in psychiatric, medical,
and community social work. It was
significant that the term “psychiatric”
was dropped from the name of the
school and in time, so were the
“specializations” as the School’s
program would come to express
Jarrett’s view, so elegantly expressed
in her blockbuster speech at the 1919
National Conference on Social
Welfare, “The Psychiatric Thread
Running Through all Social
Casework,” (Jarrett, 1920).
Chapin and Jarrett seemed to have
been a good team. They worked well
together laying down a foundation of
generic education and the block plan
that has lasted to the present. But
Chapin, who was much beloved,
found that his responsibilities at both
14
the school and the college were too
heavy and he resigned in 1921. At
that point, Everett Kimball, Smith
College economics professor, began
his 21-year tenure as Director of the
School. It’s difficult now to grasp the
full story behind the subsequent
disruption in the leadership of the
School and the departure of Jarrett.
According to one of Jarrett’s good
friends, she had a reputation as being
“difficult,” partly because of her loyal
association with the iconoclastic and
often tactless Southard. But
Southard, who died suddenly in
1920 at the age of 43, was gone.
Jarrett, however, felt that Kimball was
jealous of her and possessive of the
school, an opinion shared by Bertha
Reynolds who wrote almost 20 years
later in her resignation letter to the
president, “the School is too
important an institution to be run as
the private possession of one man.”
Later, both Florence Day and
Howard Parad reached out to Jarrett,
obtaining her help in reconstructing
the history of the School; her
fascinating papers now reside in the
Social Work Archives of the Sophia
Smith Collection.
There also may have been some
differences in ideological position.
Nielson had been exposed to and was
interested in the new ideas coming
from Europe. With the death of
Southard and the departure of Jarrett,
the school became more open to the
new psychology. Before long,
Frankwood Williams, a leader in the
mental hygiene movement and an
enthusiastic proponent first of Otto
Rank and then of Freud, joined the
summer faculty. Williams also
brought with him an interest in
Marxist thought and the Russian
experiment. He traveled to Russia
several times and came to “consider
the structure of society responsible,
equally with inner individual forces
for the formation of normal and
neurotic behavior.” (Obituary, 1920,
pp. 454-466).
Three years after the departure of
Jarrett, Bertha Reynolds, who was to
become a major leader in the
development of social work thought,
was appointed Associate Director of
the School. A member of that first
group of pioneers and a Smith
College graduate, she arrived with a
commitment to social justice, a
fascination with Marxism, and a
growing interest in both Dynamic
Psychiatry and Methodism. She also
joined the School, as she described
herself, as “a maverick … not
satisfied in a fenced in place.”
The “Roaring Twenties,” a period
of political conservatism, post-war
disillusionment, isolationism, and
individualism saw Freudian thought
become increasingly influential in
psychiatry and in social work,
particularly at Smith. But there
always seemed to be a lag time in
ideas moving across the Atlantic. This
was early Freudian thought, before
the arrival of ego psychology and
structural theory; Reynolds and
others struggled with how to
integrate these new understandings
into practice and teaching. The result
was a move toward passivity, as
students were taught to sit in silence,
waiting for clients to produce
material for work while, in parallel
process, teachers waited quietly for
students to bring forth their
thoughts. This was an understandable
reaction to the active, advice giving,
judgmental, and even scolding stance
of the well-meaning mental hygiene
worker. But I remember my mother
telling me how she and her
classmates would suffer in silence in
Reynolds’ classes, anxiety mounting,
waiting for someone to say
something!
By the end of the 1920s, Smith
social workers no longer saw themselves simply as the handmaidens of
psychiatrists in hospitals and clinics
but as professionals offering psychologically-oriented services to clients
in family agencies, schools, medical
settings, and clinics. But how was that
Betsy Libby, to discuss the integration
of the new psychology. By the end of
the decade, Virginia Robinson
published her revolutionary volume
A Changing Psychology in Social
Casework, describing the central place
of the use of relationship in casework
practice. Reynolds wrote in her review
Reynolds was concerned that social workers
not forget their traditional concern with the
social and economic factors in their client’s lives.
professional service to be shaped, how
was the growing interest in and
knowledge about the inner life to be
integrated with social work practice?
Reynolds was concerned that social
workers not forget their traditional
concern with the social and economic
factors in their client’s lives. Reflecting
on those early years, she wrote of her
experience at The Institute for Child
Guidance: “We were blinded …to the
effect of poverty, race discrimination
and the like and only saw the failure
of parents with their children,”
(Reynolds, 1963, p. 24). She also was
concerned about the elitist position
some psychiatric social workers were
taking, withdrawing from the
Psychiatric Round Table in Boston
because she felt that they were so
snobbish and considered themselves
superior to other social workers.
Perhaps some of those connected with
the Smith School for Social Work had
not escaped this attitude. When
Reynolds came to Smith, Kimball was
particularly concerned that the School
had very poor relationships with
many social agencies, asking Reynolds
to reach out and strengthen the
connections.
In her early years at Smith,
Reynolds worked in Philadelphia in
the winter and met regularly with a
group of social workers that included
Jessie Taft, Virginia Robinson, and
of the book “and we will never be the
same again.” (Reynolds, 1931)
I cannot write about the marketplace of ideas without referring to the
commitment to knowledge
development and dissemination that
has been a part of the School
throughout its history. A thesis was
required for the degree from the
beginning and, in 1929, Helen
Witmer joined the faculty as head of
research. Witmer also founded the
Smith Studies, which is the second
oldest journal in social work. (The
first, the Social Service Review, began
in 1927.) Starting primarily with the
publication of student research, the
Studies, edited by Witmer until she
left Smith in 1949 and subsequently
under the able editorship of Roger
Miller for 27 years, became a major
resource for scholars and practitioners
as well as a way for Smith faculty,
associates, and students to present
their work. Reading through the
tables of contents of the Studies over
the 79 years of its publication
provides one with a bird’s eye view of
the issues, challenges, problems and
potential solutions explored and
written about by social workers.
In 1935, Smith began another
pioneering project in advanced
education for social workers when
Reynolds started the Plan D program, which focused on supervision
15
and teaching. The school also began
a very successful yearly, on-campus
continuing education program. The
Program of Advanced Standing was
started in the 1950s and, in 1964,
the Clinical Doctoral Program was
established.
With the coming of the 1930s and
the Great Depression, the profession
was forced to reengage with the
economic and social problems that
were overwhelming a good percentage
of the population. Reynolds
responded by bringing forth two
brilliant publications, “Between Client
and Community” (1934), published
in the Smith Studies, and “Whom Do
Social Workers Serve?” (1935), in
which she presented a sophisticated
analysis of the political consequences
of the social worker’s conflict-ridden
dual role. She asked if social workers
were to be instruments of social
control or social change. Were they to
be used to induce conformity and
compliance, to cover exploitation, or
to address the inequities of society?
She answered that social workers
could “maintain their integrity between client and community only if
the processes of social change led to
the organization of a society in which
the interests of all are safeguarded,”
(Reynolds, 1935, p. 125). Reynolds
also moved to a conviction that help
should be offered, not in inaccessible
offices in agencies, but in the community, on “the highways of life
where ordinary traffic passes by.” She
was increasingly convinced that it was
an artificial abstraction to think that
we were dealing with an individual
alone, that “nine tenths of a person’s
problem solving is done in groups in
the process of living.” She was
distrustful of power and objected to
the hierarchical relationship between
worker and client. Reynolds believed
that “social work has its taproot in
what people do for themselves and
each other,” (Reynolds, 1963, p. 236).
Her thinking would have to wait 30
years before it resurfaced and was
embraced, in the 1960s. Happily, she
lived to see this happen.
Throughout the early thirties, she
also moved into leftist political action.
She was an avowed communist, a
leader in the movement to unionize
social workers through the very
successful Rank and File Movement,
(the movement was founded in 1931
and by 1935 it had 15,000 members,
twice as many as belonged to the
American Association of Social
Workers), and was a major supporter
and contributor to that movement’s
magazine, Social Work Today. In the
course of those years, she moved
further and further from Everett
Kimball, who had a decidedly
different world view. Conflict began
to develop. When students struck for
the right to participate in school
governance, Kimball blamed
Reynolds, who was then living and
working in New York in the winter, as
he felt she had recruited New York
“reds” into the program.
In 1938, it was apparent that her
differences with Kimball were too
great and Reynolds resigned. She
later explained her resignation, saying
that she believed it “was a step
backward to keep casework out of
relation to social living in groups or
unconnected with social movements
of people solving their own problems
in a time of rapid change,”
(Reynolds, 1963, p. 209). There were
also, however, larger social forces
operating. The late thirties saw a
period of suspicion and repression
SSW conducting class in psychiatry at Northampton State Hospital with Dr. Houston during first session of
School in summer of 1918. Courtesy of the Smith College Archives.
16
not unlike the McCarthyism of
almost two decades later. Jane
Addams was labeled a subversive,
social workers were fired for
organizing, and by 1941 Bertha
Reynolds was unable to get any work.
As she said, “Somewhere a door blew
shut” and it was to stay shut for 25
years, before she was to become a
patron saint of social work in the
sixties and was honored nationally,
most meaningfully for our story at
the 50th reunion at Smith when she
was finally welcomed back. It was a
very moving event.
But to return to our narrative, with
the coming of World War II, the
School was once again faced with the
challenges that had occasioned its
founding. There was a desperate need
for trained social workers both in
direct service with military personnel
and veterans as well as on the home
front. In this crisis, after much
heated discussion, Florence Day of
Family Service Association of
America was called in to consult.
The result was the development of
an accelerated program that reduced
field work, extended the length of
the summer term to three months,
and shortened the program from
27 to 15 months, still meeting the
current requirements for the MSW.
In 1943, a quick survey of 400
graduates revealed that nearly 100
were serving in the Armed Forces,
the Red Cross, military hospitals,
or home service, while 20 were
serving overseas.
The School also marked its 25th
anniversary and bid farewell to
Everett Kimball, who had led the
school through 21 of those years.
President William Alan Nielson, on
the occasion of Kimball’s retirement,
described the complex task of the
leader of this innovative school
during its first years. “It has required
not only the usual duties of an
academic administrator but also the
following of the growth of a comparatively recent branch of medical
science, the application of it to social
casework, familiarity with the whole
machinery and personnel of social
work over a large part of the United
States, the choice of staff and
selection of students, and the
elaborate business of placement,”
(Nielson, 1943). The students were
devoted to “Kim,” as they called him,
and appreciated the fact that he
insisted that the dining rooms serve
marvelous meals, a tradition that was
I will, however, never
forget Annette Garrett,
stopping me on campus
one day in 1954, face
shining, telling me about
the wonderful book she
was reading that really
was integrative; it was
Erik Erikson’s Childhood
and Society.
to continue for some time.
(Remember the roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding and the chocolate
soufflé?) He was known to brag
about how many more pounds of
student left in the fall than had
arrived in the spring.
With the departure of Kimball,
Florence Day was appointed Director,
joining Annette Garrett, a 1928
graduate of the School who had been
Associate Director since 1935. These
two women were to usher in what
would be a very special period in the
life of the School. Day, the first
woman and the first social worker to
hold the position and a leader in the
profession and in social work
education, was the consummate softspoken administrator who had her
gentle hand on every aspect of the
School. In Garrett, Smith had
claimed another scholar-practitioner
who would make major contributions
to the shaping of casework. Garrett’s
intellectual leadership focused on the
integration of dynamic psychology
into casework practice. Following up
on Robinson’s focus on relationship,
Garrett explored dynamic psychology’s contribution to the
understanding of relationship and
published her classic paper, “The
Worker-Client Relationship,”
(1949b). She also explored the issue
that has continued to challenge the
profession—the dual focus on the
inner life of clients and the social,
economic, and political realities that
impact their lives. The final paper for
Casework III, the summer-long
course all seniors took with Miss
Garrett, required that we review the
historical development of casework
and use that experience to integrate
our own learning as we developed
our professional identity. It was later
that I discovered that she had
presented her own personal version of
that assignment at the famous 1949
Boston Symposium on Psychotherapy
and Casework (Garrett, 1949a). In
this paper, she expressed her concern
about the profession’s tendency to
swing back and forth between an
overemphasis on external factors and
an exclusive concern with inner
factors. She sought integration,
believing that it was through the
understanding of the ego, where the
inner and outer worlds meet, that
such integration could be achieved.
However, the ego psychology of this
period, the defensive ego of Anna
Freud, could not complete the
integrative task Garrett set for it.
Hartmann’s work on adaptation,
although presented in Vienna but a
year after Anna Freud presented her
work, had yet to be translated into
English. I will, however, never forget
Annette Garrett, stopping me on
campus one day in 1954, face
17
shining, telling me about the
wonderful book she was reading that
really was integrative; it was Erik
Erikson’s Childhood and Society.
Moving on from Robinson’s work,
Garrett also explored the significance
of dynamic psychology for the
worker-client relationship, bringing
to social workers a thoughtful
discussion of transference and
counter-transference.
The McCarthyism and rise of
conservatism in the 1950s once again
saw social work’s increasing focus on
the inner world at the same time
many social work leaders were urging
the profession to “put the social back
into social work.” Garrett responded
sharply to the critics saying, “Putting
the social back in social casework does
not mean one whit less attention to
the need for knowledge of unconscious and instinctual behavior,
but it does mean an enriched blending of both as the unconscious
significance of the social aspects is
increasingly appreciated, and the
practical manifestations of the
unconscious are recognized in
familiar, taken for granted activities,”
(Garrett, 1958, p. 46). This may well
have been in part a response to
Charlotte Towle of the University of
Chicago’s evaluation of the School,
which criticized the program for
being primarily and excessively
focused on psychological variables.
But what did it really mean to “put
the social back into social work?” A
major contributor to this lively discussion was Herman Stein, who was a
key member of the Smith summer
faculty and taught at the Columbia
School in the academic year. With
Richard Cloward of Columbia, he
edited the widely used text Social
Perspectives on Behavior, which
brought the new knowledge
developing in sociology and other
social sciences into social work
curricula across the country. The
18
Annette Garrett and Grace Nicholls.
Courtesy of Ann Hartman, M.S.S. ’54.
“social” in social work didn’t just
mean manipulating the environment
and delivering concrete services. It
also could not be accomplished
simply by a more sophisticated
understanding of ego function. It
meant bringing an understanding of
the socio-cultural context into any
practice situation. This mounting
concern about the “social” was, in a
sense, a hint of what was to come in
the sixties.
The Day-Garrett era at Smith
ended abruptly in 1956. Florence
Day, unknown to all of us, was
suffering from a return of cancer.
(I drove her to her doctor in Boston
one day with no idea that she was
ill.) Howard Parad, a lively, young,
and very innovative social worker was
hired as her successor but, by his
second summer, Annette Garrett was
also desperately ill. Florence Day died
in August and Annette Garrett in
November, 1957. Their leadership
had been so central to the School
that Parad was faced with a
demoralized institution in crisis and
in mourning.
Parad brought to the marketplace a
rich and varied background and some
new ideas. He had worked with
Gerald Caplan and 1944 Smith grad
Lydia Rapoport on the development
of crisis intervention and, in his
doctoral work at Columbia, carried a
dual concentration in casework and
policy-community planning.
(Rapoport was to go on to become an
internationally known practitionerscholar and teacher. She was the
youngest person ever to graduate
from the program, graduating Phi
Beta Kappa from Radcliff at the age
of 19, and receiving her M.S.S. at 21.
The endowed Lydia Rapoport
professorship was established in her
memory at her untimely death in
1971.) Parad’s expertise proved to be
fortuitous. Some Smith College
trustees chose this time to raise
questions about whether the college
really needed a social work school and
President Mendenhall’s ambivalent
attitude meant that his support could
disappear at crucial times.
Parad’s first challenge was to see
that the School survived. He brought
his community planning expertise to
this task, strengthening the alumnae
organization and mounting a major
fund drive, headed by Eleanor Clark,
which was so successful that it
persuaded the trustees that the
alumnae valued and supported the
School.
There were other challenges
occurring during his 14-year tenure.
Parad explored the possibility of
admitting men to the program and
was advised by the Massachusetts
Supreme Court to do so and wait
to see if there were any complaints.
There were none and men have
been graduates of the School since
the mid 1950s.
As the nation moved to the left,
the civil rights movement developed,
bringing nation-wide demands for
major social change. Casework was
increasingly under fire for having
abandoned the poor and as being
irrelevant to the major problems
facing the country. Critics echoed
Bertha Reynolds’ concern that
casework was too often used to
maintain the status quo in an unjust
society. Parad also had his own goals.
He wanted to strengthen policy,
community and socio-cultural content
in the curriculum, to broaden the
perspective on casework practice
including attention to crisis and shortterm models, and to bring greater
diversity to the student body. He was
also faced with a very tight budget, yet
was committed to keeping tuition low
and insuring the availability of
training for lower income students.
There were no electives and no funds
to expand the curriculum. He did
manage to finance one new and very
successful elective on comparative
personality theory. Often the new
ideas were introduced outside the
required course curriculum. He gave
an orientation lecture on “Basic
Concepts and Issues in Community
Planning” and seminars were organized in the winter led by part time
faculty who took students to various
social agencies and community action
programs to expand their exposure to
the range of social work activities.
Parad organized a group of students
who went to Washington to press
their legislators to adequately fund the
Civil Rights Act.
At the same time, there was a lively
exchange of ideas among members of
the School community which
expressed the excitement as Freudian
thought was integrated into casework
practice. This exchange was preserved
in two fascinating collections of
papers, Ego Psychology and Dynamic
Casework, edited by Parad and
published in 1958, and Ego Oriented
Casework, edited by Parad and Roger
Miller, and published in 1963. These
classic collections presented papers by
members of the faculty, alumnae, and
In an effort to recruit minority
students, an innovative program
was initiated that brought promising
African American and Latina juniors
in college to campus for six weeks,
during which time they sat in on
one course and took special courses
arranged for them. This program
continued for three years and
resulted in some of these students
entering the program. As an
illustration of “casting your bread
upon the water,” many years later,
Joyce Everett, who had been a
member of the first group, joined
the Smith faculty and has been a
valued and productive member for
more than 20 years.
By the late sixties and early
seventies, the nationwide “student
power movement” began to be felt at
Smith. In 1969, the students were
granted, for the first time, the right
to read their evaluations. Toward the
end of Parad’s time at Smith, the
By the late sixties and early seventies, the
nationwide “student power movement” began
to be felt at Smith.
other associates of the School,
providing a fascinating picture of the
cutting-edge thinking of the time
from major leaders in social work and
psychiatry.
From this distance, it is difficult to
assess the impact of these many ideas
on the culture of the School, among
the students on the ground. Monica
McGoldrick, ’69, who was to become
an international leader in family
therapy, reported that she
experienced the school as quite
conservative but that she had some
wonderful courses. She reported that
she was criticized for her interest in
family treatment; some faculty felt
that she was superficial and using this
interest to avoid really “going into
depth.”
students organized and demanded
equal representation with the faculty
in decision making, as they had 30
years before. A strike was threatened
and students and faculty went
through a period of painful conflict.
The strike was called off when Parad
made clear to the students, so close
to the end of the summer, that nonattendance at class would jeopardize
their graduation; nevertheless, this
marked the beginning of major
changes in student life that were to
take place over the next decade.
Coffee in the living rooms, served
family-style meals, required oncampus residence all disappeared as
students became increasingly active
in shaping the curriculum and in
developing their own organizations
19
and educational programs.
With Parad’s departure in 1971, the
School turned once again to the
Smith College faculty and Professor
Kenneth McCartney was appointed
dean. His tenure ended in 1976 when
Katherine Gabel was appointed. The
seventies and eighties were interesting
and complex times at Smith and in
the nation. America again, in its
continued pendulum swings between
right and left, moved to the right
while, at the same time, the Civil
Rights Movement continued, joined
by other groups seeking recognition
and equality—women, children, gays
and lesbians, the disabled.
Casework, in part in response to
the attacks of the sixties and in an
effort to restore its status and
credibility, renamed itself as “clinical
social work” and became increasingly
medicalized. At Smith, the Casework
Sequence became the “Treatment
Methods Sequence.” “Students in
placement” became “interns.” Larger
influences were also at play as
psychiatry itself turned increasingly
to medicine and the insurance
industry became more and more
influential. The old Association of
Psychiatric Social Workers was reborn
as the Clinical Society and many
“caseworkers” abandoned NASW,
believing their interests were being
ignored or even disparaged.
Margaret Frank, who chaired
Smith’s Treatment Sequence,
bemoaned the fact that “clinical
social work is fast becoming an alien
within it’s own family—the family of
social work,” (Frank, 1979, p.15).
NASW, in an effort to reassure and
woo disengaged clinical social
workers, convened an invitational
symposium at which nine people
who had written about practice were
invited to discuss and attempt to
define clinical social work. Peg Frank
was among the group and her
contribution can be seen as a
20
statement about the ideas about
practice that were flourishing at
Smith during this period. She defined
clinical social work as “a process of
treatment which addresses itself to
the support, promotion, and increase
of internal resources (psychic
equipment) in people” (Ibid, p.14).
She went on to describe her own
theoretical frame of reference as
“psychoanalytic developmental
psychology.” The intervention model
taught was clearly psychoanalyticallyoriented psychotherapy with
emphasis on the developing theory in
ego psychology, object relations, and
self psychology. She sharpened and
clarified the psychological lenses
brought to the School and this was a
significant contribution. However,
ties to social work seemed to fray. As
one faculty member teaching in the
period commented, “If you had one
article on the environment and one
on racial discrimination on your
syllabus, you’d covered it.” There was
an emphasis on theory and on “the
accountability of practice to theory,”
although some casework teachers
continued the inductive method,
starting with case material and
pulling a theoretical understanding
out of the practice situation.
At the same time, however,
expanding electives began to offer
what Phebe Sessions, who joined the
faculty in the 1970s, has called “an
alternative curriculum” and other
ideas began to be heard in the
marketplace. Family theory was
introduced, eventually becoming a
required course. Family therapy
courses followed and, in the early
eighties, Sessions brought critical
theory to bear on clinical processes in
a new elective titled “Private Troubles
and Public Issues: The Social
Construction of Assessment.” She
also introduced, with John
Ehrenreich, a course on work with
people in poverty.
The impact of the civil rights
movement continued to be felt and,
in 1979, the School embarked on an
ethnicity project, funded by the
National Institute of Mental Health,
which brought a large cohort of black
students into the program and
supported a major conference at
Smith for social work faculty from
around the country on culture and
clinical practice. A lecture course
titled “American Racism:
Implications for Clinical Practice”
Early social workers conducting therapy with a child.
Courtesy of the Smith College Archives.
Class members perform a skit in 1940.
Courtesy of Smith College Archives.
became a part of the required
curriculum.
Kathy Gabel, who came with a
background in law and social policy,
was committed to enhancing that
content in the curriculum which was
accomplished during her tenure. She
was also very supportive of student
participation and founded
“curriculum day,” which gave students
an opportunity to work with faculty
on shaping the program. Through
this and their many organizations the
students became increasingly active in
bringing their ideas to the marketplace. In 1977, The Feminist Alliance
was founded and an alumni and
student sponsored conference,
“Changing Perspectives on Women in
the Seventies,” was held. The Alliance
called on the School and supervisors
to broaden knowledge about gender
identity formation, sex role
stereotyping, and gender bias in
practice and in organizational
structures. This was followed by the
founding of the Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual Alliance in 1979, which
brought attention to the explicit
pathologizing of homosexuality and
gay and lesbian people in some of the
courses and campaigned for including
sexual orientation in the School’s and
the College’s anti-discrimination
policy statements. During this period
what may have been the first social
work course on HIV AIDS was also
added to the curriculum. Although by
1985 the students felt that many
changes had been made, they cited
the need for a renewed commitment
to social work values and continued
to call for increased attention and
sensitivity to issues of difference, as
well as active recruitment of minority
faculty and students. When I came to
Smith in 1986, my agenda was very
similar to that of Howard Parad’s,
exactly 30 years before, namely to
strengthen the ties to the broader
social work profession, to increase
social content in the curriculum, and
to enhance the diversity of the
student body and the faculty. Despite
earlier efforts, in the summer of 1986
there were only three students of
color in the entire student body, and
only one in the incoming class.
Taking a page from family network
therapy in which everyone with
interest in a problem is called together
to solve it, and with the financial
support of President Mary Maples
Dunn, the following summer I
invited every person of color who had
graduated from the school to come
back and help us with what I
considered to be a genuine crisis. The
response was impressive. More than
40 people attended and worked hard
for three days to help us plan
solutions for recruitment and
retention of minority students as well
as to rethink how issues of racism and
diversity were being approached in
the curriculum. This watershed event
had an enormous effect on the school
and rebuilt relationships between the
School and the alumnae of color, who
would become key advisors and
recruiters. We would never be the
same again.
Over time, the curriculum became
more hospitable to a variety of ideas as
the size of the school increased and
the budget expanded, making more
room for electives. The faculty took
major responsibility for the Council
on Social Work Education
accreditation, which was a major spur
to curriculum review and change. The
“social environment” part of “Human
Behavior and the Social Environment”
was strengthened and practice courses
were developed that focused on a wide
range of problems and populations.
Although all students took the
required core of courses and the
theory course still began with “The
Case of Anna O,” there was an
increased opportunity for students to
fashion their experience in order to
follow their interests. With the
leadership of Susan Donner, who was
the Associate Dean and Director of
Field, efforts were also made to
diversify field experience. New
placements were opened in such
varied places as Athol, Albuquerque
and Alaska. Particular efforts were
made to respond to the needs of
western Massachusetts and many
interesting placement opportunities
emerged. The Springfield Schools
Project was launched, an innovative
program in which students were
taught to follow the problem wherever
21
Foreign students at SSW, 1947. Courtesy of Smith College Archives.
it would lead, from the child to the
teacher, school, family, and
community.
Change is exciting but also cannot
help but produce conflict. There was
trepidation that the “Smith
perspective” would be lost; many
alumnae watched with concern. I
remember, in one of the many letters
I received, an alumna complained
that a student had been placed at The
Henry Street Settlement. I think by
the 75th Reunion in 1993, most
alumnae and alumni were reassured
that Smith was still Smith.
The students, as they always had
been, were adventurous and
dedicated, choosing the most
demanding and longest M.S.W.
program in the country, to perhaps
locate in a new community for
placement, and to have to complete a
thesis, which is not required in any
other program. Not surprisingly, as
22
they become alums, they are highly
respected, sought after by employers,
and many go on to become leaders in
the profession.
Anita Lightburn took over
leadership of the school in 1994. She
brought with her a long commitment
to services to people in poverty and to
work in the community. Her wish
was to make the school more
attentive “to the world out there” and
she took the position that practice
should be shaped not just by theory
but also by context. Her first year, she
cancelled classes for a day and,
reminiscent of the sixties, held an all
day teach-in where a number of
leaders in social work came to campus
and conducted workshops on the
many problems facing society and
social workers today. Lightburn’s
emphasis on community-based
practice would have delighted Bertha
Reynolds who felt that practice
should be located “on the highways
of life.” The Center for Innovative
Practice was founded, helping faculty
to launch a variety of creative projects
including family support, early
childhood study, a focus on the end
of life, and a continuation of the
Springfield Schools model project.
These activities resulted in a number
of influential publications. Her outreach to the world also included a
project exploring the world of
managed care as well as engagement
with state administrators of the
mental health system to learn from
them how the school might better
prepare students to serve in their
agencies.
Finally, a continued concern about
racism led to the establishment of
the anti-racism task force and to the
establishment of the School as an
anti-racism institution, which
committed it to not just teaching
about, but taking action against,
racism. The commitment of the
School to become an anti-racism
institution began a long, slow but
significant transformation of the
School’s curriculum and community.
Second-year placement assignments
now included the requirement that
students design and complete an
anti-racism project.
During this period, social workers
nationwide were struggling with
identity and purpose. Criticism, too,
continued as many felt that social
workers, fleeing to private practice,
were abandoning their social justice
mission to work exclusively with the
“worried well” and, once again, were
medicalizing social problems. Again,
we were accused of being agents of
social control. Was social work’s dual
legacy irreconcilable?
In the 1990s, Smith faculty
members Jerry Sachs and Fred
Newdom designed a course that
integrated clinical practice and social
action. Seeking to bridge what they
considered to be a false dichotomy,
they wrote: “To see an issue as a
social problem or an individual
deficit, to continue or discontinue
work with an angry confrontational
client, to engage in dialogue or exert
control over paraprofessional workers
and clients, to problematize the
world or give in to the status quo, to
act as an agent of social control or of
social change, and to bear witness or
be silent are some of the choices
social workers make every day,”
(Sachs & Newdom, 1999, p. 205.)
In other words, we cannot avoid it:
The professional is political.
At present the phrase coined by
Professor Kathryn Basham best sums
up the orientation of the School.
Our educational approach is
“theoretically grounded, relationally
based, and culturally informed.” This
approach has been enriched by
faculty scholarship and research that
has taken the School’s clinical base
and added and integrated some of
the following areas: palliative care,
social identity, qualitative research,
trauma, intersubjectivity, couples
work, trauma and combat stress,
social work and spirituality, antiracism, institutional change, child
soldiers and resettlement, aging and
technology, community based
practice, school social work, disaster
debriefing, anti-racism and
pedagogy, end of life, supervision,
psychodynamic theories in multicultural contexts, sexual abuse in
adolescence, attachment disorders,
social welfare policy and children
and families, intersection of race and
substance abuse, self psychology,
developmental theory, cross
culturally, post structuralist method
of discourse analogies, fatherhood
involvement and divorce. This list is
not exhaustive but it certainly gives a
meaningful glimpse of where the
history of the School has brought us
at present.
Long-time faculty member
Carolyn Jacobs became dean in
2003. We are once again responding
to a nation at war. The school is
also reaching out world wide as
students are placed in Thailand and
faculty members are pursuing
projects in China and Africa. As
trauma is endemic throughout this
nation and the world, Smith’s special
expertise in this area has been
increasingly sought. Dean Jacobs
will be presenting her State of the
School Address at our 90th
anniversary this coming summer and
I hope to greet many of you there.
SSW Class of 1954. Courtesy of Smith College Archives.
References
Frank, M. G. (1979). Knowledge
base of clinical social work. In
P. Ewalt (Ed.), Toward a
definition of clinical social
work (pp. 13-22).
Washington, DC: National
Association of Social Workers.
Garrett, A. (1949a). Historical
survey of the evolution of
casework. Journal of Social
Casework, June, 219-229.
Garrett, A. (1949b). The workerclient relationship. American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry,
XIX, 224-238.
Jarrett, M. C. (1919). The
psychiatric thread running
through all social casework.
National Conference of Social
Work Proceedings. Chicago:
Rogers and Hall.
Kimball, W. A. (1943).
Foreward. Smith College
Studies in Social Work, XIV.
Obituary. (1920). Psychoanalytic
Quarterly, 5, 465-466.
Parad, H. (1958). Ego
psychology and dynamic
casework. New York: Family
Service Association of
America.
Parad, H., & Miller, R. (1963).
Ego-oriented casework. New
York: Family Service
Association of America.
Reynolds, B. (1934). Between
client and community. Smith
College Studies in Social
Work, 5(1).
Reynolds, B. (1931). Review: A
changing psychology in social
casework. The Family, XIV.
Reynolds, B. (1963). An
uncharted journey. New York:
The Citadel Press.
Reynolds, B. (1935). Whom do
social workers serve? Social
Work Today, II.
Southard, E. E. & Jarrett, M. C.
(1922). The kingdom of evils.
New York: Macmillan.
23
S P R I N G 2008 F A C U LT Y N O T E S
During the past six
months, Kathryn Basham
has continued her research
and practice interests in
addressing the issues facing
returning warfighters and
their families as they reunite
following tours of duty in a
combat zone. In autumn,
2007, she also received the
honor of induction into the
National Academies of
Practice, Washington D.C.
as a Distinguished Clinical Practitioner. She co-authored a
text titled Physiologic, Psychological and Psychosocial Effects of
Deployment-Related Stress, the culmination of a two-year
interdisciplinary research project sponsored by the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. Findings
and recommendations were disseminated at a Congressional
hearing in November, 2007, contributing to policies and
procedures affecting the mental health of all veterans. Dr.
Basham has also continued to consult on practice approaches
with couples and families following homecoming from
combat. For example, she was invited to present at a Grand
Rounds with the Department of Psychiatry at the Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. on the
topic of “Coming Home: Refuge or the Second Front,”
which addressed the experiences of attachment and
detachment for families coping with deployment. A similar
presentation was scheduled for late February, 2008 at the
Mental Health Unit at the Veterans’ Administration Medical
Center in Northampton, Massachusetts. Earlier last autumn,
during a preview of an independent film titled “No
Unwounded Soldier,” co-sponsored by Smith College School
for Social Work and the Veteran’s Project of Amherst, Dr.
Basham co-facilitated a discussion generated by the
experiences of six Vietnam veterans engaged in psychodrama
therapy. Writing projects have included a recently published
paper titled “Homecoming as Safe Haven or the New Front:
Attachment and Detachment among Military Couples” in a
24
special issue on attachment theory and practice with adults in
the Clinical Social Work Journal. The newly revised version of
Inside Out: Outside In includes a new chapter on “Trauma
Theories” written by Dr. Basham. Additional publications
include a chapter on “Guidelines for Couple Therapy with
Survivors of Childhood Trauma” to be published in the
Social Work Desk Reference and a book review published in
the Clinical Social Work Journal on The Dissociative Mind.
Interesting writing projects also percolate in relation to Dr.
Basham’s new role as Editor of the Smith College Studies in
Social Work.
Joan Berzoff – In January
of 2008, the second edition
of J. Berzoff, P. Hertz, and
L.M. Flanagan, Inside Out
and Outside In: Psychodynamic
Theories in Multicultural
Practice (NJ: Roman and
Littlefield Press) was
published. The second
edition includes new chapters
on attachment, trauma, and
intersubjectivity, as well as the
inclusion of new content on
race, gender, and neurobiology, which is infused throughout
this psychodynamic theory and practice textbook.
In addition, Dr. Berzoff co-authored with Inge Corless a
paper entitled “Zelda’s Life: Attention Must be Paid” for the
special issue of the Journal of Social Work in End of Life and
Palliative Care (vol. 3, #1). This issue honored the life and
work of Zelda Foster. Dr. Berzoff co-edited the volume with
Ellen Csikai.
Additionally Dr. Berzoff published a chapter on “The
Smith/Baystate End of Life Certificate Program,” in E.
Csikai and B. Jones (eds.), Teaching Resources for End of Life
and Palliative Care (NY: Lyceum Press).
Having completed a research project on the needs of renal
hospice care from the perspectives of patients, families, and
staff (funded by the Clinical Research Institute in
conjunction with an NIH R-21 grant for which she was a
consultant), Dr. Berzoff and Jennifer Swantkowski published
an article about developing renal hospice care, entitled
“Developing a Renal Supportive Care Team from the Voices
of Patients, Families, and Palliative Care Staff ” in the
journal Palliative and Supportive Care. Additionally, the
results of this study were presented at the January Meeting
of the Society for Social Work Research in Washington,
D.C., where Jennifer Swantkowski gave the presentation.
S P R I N G 2008 F A C U LT Y N O T E S
Dr. Berzoff also gave a number of lectures nationally. The
first was to the Georgia Clinical Society in December of
2007 on the transformative aspects of grief and
bereavement; the second was on relational care with the
dying. In January 2008, she was the Convocation speaker at
the Sanville Institute for Clinical Social Work in Los
Angeles, California, where she gave two similar lectures and
consulted on two cases.
Additionally, Dr. Berzoff and Dr. Kathryn Basham are
currently serving in liaison roles between the Sanville
Institute and the Smith College School for Social Work in
an exchange of doctoral students this year. Three students
from the Sanville Institute will attend the Doctoral Program
at Smith for five days this summer, and three doctoral
students from Smith will attend the Sanville Institute
Convocation in Los Angeles, next January.
Dr. Berzoff continues to direct the End of Life Certificate
Program in a collaboration between the Smith College
School for Social Work and the Baystate Medical Center.
She plans to continue that Program during her sabbatical
leave next year and to begin to introduce other disciplines in
the training program, including divinity, nursing, and
psychology. While on sabbatical she will be seeking funding
to begin an end of life and palliative care training institute
that will be multidisciplinary. Dr. Berzoff has also been
invited to participate in the International Working Group
on Death Dying and Bereavement
Joanne Corbin is
evaluating the outcomes of a
Psychosocial Training-ofTrainers (TOT) program in
northern Uganda with Arden
O’Donnell ’08. The training
program was designed to
strengthen the knowledge and
skills of local service providers
working with children and
families affected by armed
conflict. Dr. Corbin is
examining the ways the
training supported service provision in this area. O’Donnell
is focusing on the interpersonal changes that occurred among
the participants in this training for her thesis. Dr. Corbin
recently co-authored an article with Dr. Josh Miller using
the conceptual framework of collaboration to explore the
TOT model as an intervention. The article will appear in
Families in Society. Dr. Corbin has presented her work at the
Annual Meeting of Council on Social Work Education
(CSWE) in San Francisco on October 30 and at NASW Connecticut Chapter on October 23. She also presented
at the NASW - Massachusetts chapter meeting on
April 10-11 and at the The Borowsky Gallery / The Open
Lens Gallery in Philadelphia on April 6. That event was
titled “Small Survivors, Vulnerable Children of Northern
Uganda.” More information can be found at
http://www.phillyjcc.com/node/459.
James Drisko presented
“Evidence-based Practice:
Its Application to Social
Work Practice” as part of
the Clinical Symposium at
November’s Annual
program meeting of the
Council on Social Work
Education. Dr. Drisko also
presented a Faculty
Development Institute on
“Teaching Qualitative
Research.” Jean LaTerz,
25
S P R I N G 2008 F A C U LT Y N O T E S
M.S.W., Ed.D., the School’s Thesis Coordinator, and Dr.
Drisko co-authored a paper entitled “How Foundation
Research is Taught at the Master’s Level” at the Council on
Social Work Education Conference in San Francisco.
Allison Sibley, M.S.W., a Ph.D. candidate at Smith, and
Dr. Drisko co-authored a paper entitled “Child Clinician’s
Definitions and Implementation of “Parent Work:”
Educational Implications” at the Council on Social Work
Education Conference in San Francisco.
Joan Lesser presented a
paper, “Trauma revisited:
Combining self psychology
and narrative therapies in
group practice with elderly
women,” at South China
Agricultural University in
Guangzhou, PR. Dr. Lesser
also received an honorary
degree from the University.
She traveled to China with a
team that included Smith
doctoral student, Florence Loh, to conduct the second phase
of a cross cultural research study of depression and help
seeking behaviors among community residing older adults
in the Chinese American Boston community and
Guangzhou, China. Dr. Lesser and her research colleagues
from Fordham University Graduate School of Social Services
and Springfield College School for Social Work have been
invited to present a paper on their study at the sixth
International Conference on New Directions in the
Humanities at Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey in June.
Dr. Lesser also received a Clinical Research Institute Grant
for her research on the experience of non-Jewish mothers
who are raising Jewish children. Masters student Omer
Mendelson is working with Dr. Lesser on this project in
collaboration with the Mother’s Circle, a program sponsored
by the Jewish Outreach Institute. Dr. Lesser’s paper on
group work practice with aging refugees was accepted for
NASW’s 2008 Symposium, April 2008.
Josh Miller has been working
on three projects with students
and colleagues. One is research
about the psychosocial needs of
the Vietnamese population in
Biloxi in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, with Dr.
Yoosun Park and student Bao
Chau Van. He is also exploring
a psychosocial capacity-building
project in war-torn Sri Lanka
with student Kay Naito. The third project is an attempt to
develop a medical capacity-building project in Northern
Uganda with a group of doctors in Western Massachusetts
and colleagues in Northern Uganda, whom he met during
his work with Dr. Joanne Corbin’s psychosocial capacitybuilding project.
Dr. Miller has begun work on his next book, which is
provisionally titled, The Social Ecology of Disaster:
Psychosocial Healing and Capacity-Building. In September
2007 he delivered a sermon at All Souls Unitarian Church
in Greenfield, Massachusetts entitled, “Restorative justice
and spiritual healing: The Acholi tradition of Mato Oput.”
He also led workshops in antiracism at the Seattle
Midwifery School and Seattle Clinical Social Work Society.
This past fall he and Dr. Susan Donner co-led a workshop
for social work faculty at Fordham University about
becoming a multicultural organization.
Catherine Nye spent
several weeks this past winter
in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She
continued her research, met
with the three Smith students
who are in field placements
there and their supervisors,
and organized a joint Chiang
Mai University and Smith
College SSW conference and
workshop on Using
Knowledge Management in
Social Work Practice, which was held on February 4 and 5.
Dr. Nye delivered a paper at the conference entitled,
26
S P R I N G 2008 F A C U LT Y N O T E S
“Conceptualizing social work practice: using knowledge
management to codify practice wisdom and local
knowledge.” This past fall she had a paper accepted by
International Social Work (to be published in vol. 51(2)).
The title of the paper is “The delivery of social services in
northern Thailand.” In June she presented a paper at the
Third Annual International Clinical Supervision Conference
at the University of Buffalo. The title of that paper was
“Training supervisors in two cultures: toward a model for
codifying practice wisdom and local knowledge.”
Yoosun Park has two forthcoming articles. Her research on
the role of social workers in the
Japanese American internment,
called “Facilitating injustice:
tracing the role of social
workers in the World War Two
internment of Japanese
Americans” is scheduled to be
published in Social Service
Review in September of this
year. Another article, “Making
refugees: a historical discourse analysis of the construction of
the “refugee” in U.S. social work, 1900-1952” will be out in
June in The British Journal of Social Work. She is completing
her work on the history of the second half of the century.
Two other pieces, one on the theories and methods of
Historical Discourse Analysis for the Sage Encyclopedia on
Qualitative Research in Social Work, and another on the
Japanese American Community for the Oxford Encyclopedia
of Social Work will also be published this year. The first round
of interviews for her on-going research on acculturation,
a part of the NIH funded study on Obesity and the Built
Environment in New York City, has been completed. She
and her colleagues for the study are currently involved in
the analysis of the data. Lastly, Dr. Park continues her
collaboration with Dr. Joshua Miller on a research project
investigating the impact of the Hurricane and the aftermath
on the Vietnamese American community in Biloxi,
Mississippi. Data collection is scheduled to begin in April.
Marsha Kline Pruett
continues to work on the
dissemination of the evidencedbased Supporting Father
Involvement project that she has
been working on in California
for the past five years. An article
summarizing “lessons learned” is
in press and will be published in
the Journal of Social Services
Research. She recently conducted
a Training of Trainers for the dissemination phase that
brought together interveners, consultants, policymakers, and
public relations professionals. A master clinical lecture in
Wisconsin on family interventions surrounding divorcing and
high conflict families, consultation to students at Hofstra Law
School, and completion of a prospectus for a new book also
dominated her fall term. Finally, Dr. Pruett is completing the
co-editing of a book titled, Feathering the Nest: Couple
Relationships, Couples Interventions and Children’s Development,
to be published this summer by the American Psychological
Association.
27
~ In Memoriam ~
Class of 1936
Harriet Smith
Dresser
Elizabeth Lawder
Sylvia Rogosa
Class of 1937
Leah Turitz
Chodrow
Class of 1942
Dr. Betty P.
Braodhurst
Mary BurlingameHess
Class of 1948
Sylvia Solovey
Class of 1943
Jean Churchill
Moore
Muriel Berliner
Zuckerman
Class of 1949
Lesley Gray
Langdon
Janet Matthews
Rosenberg
Class of 1947
Mary Christian
Class of 1951
Ruth Bradbury
Class of 1953
Katherine Clement
Class of 1958
Elizabeth (Bette)
Harlan
Class of 1962
Aja Linda Cornelia
Griffin
Class of 1980
Irene Lee
Class of 1981
Katherine Ryan
Elizabeth (Bette) Harlan, Arizona State social worker, died March 5, 2008 at age 79.
Following her first year at Smith, Bette was elected A+ student president and became noted
for her Monday night presentation drawing a comparison between the problem solving
process and extrication of a “precious marble” (the problem) from a chandelier (the client)
encapsulated in chewing gum (the defense systems and environmental factors “protecting”
the client’s treasure).
After receiving her M.S.S. in 1958, Bette served for 34 years, primarily in public welfare
and mental health. A Phoenix resident since 1969, she was a member of NASW for 50
years, working to promote social change through initiating the Arizona Chapter NASW
Committees on Women’s Issues and Lesbian and Gay Issues. Employment at Arizona State
Hospital included in- and out-patient social work and supervision; originating the Phoenix
South Community Mental Health Elderly Program; and field instruction for Arizona State
University.
She never lost her sense of humor and her ability to relate to very diverse personalities.
Submitted by Natalie Jane Woodman, M.S.S., 1959
39
STATEMENT OF ANTIRACISM: Smith College
School for Social Work has
committed itself to becoming
an anti-racism institution.
The School pledges to
overcome racism in all of its
programs. All programs are
expected to monitor and
report on their anti racism
efforts to the Anti-Racism
Consultation Committee.
NOTICE ON
NONDISCRIMINATION :
Smith College is committed
to maintaining a diverse
community in an atmosphere
of mutual respect and
appreciation of differences.
Smith College does not
discriminate in its education
and employment policies
on the basis of race, color,
creed, religion, national/
ethnic origin, sex, sexual
orientation, age, or with
regard to the bases outlined
in the Veterans Readjustment
Act and the Americans with
Disabilities Act.The following
office has been designated
to handle inquiries regarding
nondiscrimination policies:
Director of Institutional
Diversity, College Hall #104,
(413) 585-2141
Dean’s Office
Lilly Hall
Northampton, MA 01063
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